The 10 year mystery
by Alarose
Summary: Time has dulled the hurt and desperation of Conan's disappearance, but it has also increased the skill of the Shonen Tantei. Especially the current leader and one of the two more intelligent members of the group: Mitsuhiko. Coming across an inconsistency in Conan's history, Mitsuhiko begins to pursue the mystery, no matter how much Shinichi tries to stop him.


The 10 year mystery

"Oi, Mitsuhiko, come on!" Ayumi said angrily, pulling Mitsuhiko through the halls. He'd stopped to read something or other on the noticeboard, but the Detective Club was in a bit of a hurry today.

"Ow, Ayumi!" He protested her rough treatment of his arm. She let go and the two of them ran down the hall, earning an angry shout from one of the teachers. Running out into the yard and to the clubhouses, Ayumi threw open the door to the Detective Club and ran in. Genta and Ai were already there with a computer open. Skype was already pulled up, and the face of their mentor and sponsor, Shinichi Kudo, was on the screen.

"Hello Ayumi-chan, Mitsuhiko-kun," He said.

"Hello," they replied, sitting down. Mitsuhiko glanced over at Ai, but she was resolutely avoiding his gaze, focusing on Shinichi.

"Sorry I'm going to have to cut this short, I wanted to chat with you for a while but a case came up and I'll have to leave in just a couple minutes," Shinichi said.

"It's fine, Shinichi-niisan, we understand," Ai said gently.

"Yeah, but tell us about your trip? How's London?" Ayumi asked excitedly.

"Ah, London is actually really great. There haven't been too many cases, though Kaitou Kid did come by to take something the first night here, and I've met some really interesting people!"

"Really? Like who?" Genta asked.

"Let's see, I met an inspector named Lestrade, his mother named him after the Sherlock Holmes character, and I met a few famous actors and actresses," Shinichi said, trailing off.

"Cool!" Ayumi said.

"We haven't really done very much ourselves, but we solved a case yesterday about a guy who'd been shot by an arrow. It was planted in his closet by his daughter, so it shot when he opened the door to get dressed for work. She wanted the insurance money," Mitsuhiko said.

"Neh, have you managed to find anything about Conan?" Ayumi asked sadly. Shinichi blinked and looked sideways at something offscreen.

"Ah, no, I haven't. I'm sure he's fine wherever he is though, you guys don't need to worry. Just move on and you'll be fine. Well, I have to go, I'll talk to you guys later, alright?" Shinichi said.

"Bye!" The Club cheered as the screen turned black. Mitsuhiko sighed and leaned back in his seat, thinking to himself. Conan had dropped into his life 10 years ago, bringing Ayumi, Genta, and him together. Shortly after, Ai had joined them and they had become the Shounen Tantei, the Detective Boys. For two years, they solved mysteries together, faced great danger, and strived to solve cases. The whole time, Conan, the genius behind them, pushed them to think for themselves. Then, one day, he vanished. Sure, they received a call from him later saying he had gone back to America with his family, but they never saw him again. For a couple years after, they received calls from him checking in, but slowly the calls became less and less often, until he stopped calling them altogether. They used to call him sometimes for help on cases, which they continued to solve in Elementary school, but his phone stopped working in middle school, and he never gave them a new number. He had vanished off the face of the earth.

For a while, they had been devastated. They asked Shinichi to look for him, and he'd promised to keep an eye out for information about Conan. Ai had said that he'd probably become so distracted by his new life that he didn't really have time to call, and the group had accepted it. Though they missed him, it was distant. After all, it had been 8 years ago that he'd left. They wanted to know what happened to him, but it was with the curiosity of an old friend, not with the desperation that it had been in the beginning. Immediately after Conan left, Ai had become their new leader since she was the most mature. Over time Mitsuhiko had taken that role as he developed his intelligence, though Ai remained their chemicals and poisons expert. After all, the group had been solving cases from murder to theft for years now, they had become a very well known detective group, and they knew that if Conan wasn't contacting them anymore, it was because he either didn't want to or he couldn't. Mitsuhiko wasn't sure which one was worse, and perhaps it was better they remained ignorant.

"Well, I have to go, I'm helping the Professor with an experiment today," Ai said, packing up her bag to leave.

"Alright, bye Ai!" Ayumi said happily.

"Ah, Ai-" Mitsuhiko started, but the blond-haired girl closed the door behind her, cutting him off. Mitsuhiko frowned, trying to ignore the pang of hurt. Both Ayumi and Genta watched sadly as he opened the door to run after Ai, but she was gone. Mitsuhiko sighed.

"I'm leaving too. I'll see you guys tomorrow, call me if anything comes up," he said, grabbing his bag and leaving.

Mitsuhiko wasn't quite sure where he was going. Ai had made it clear she didn't want to see him, and he wasn't really in the mood to head home yet. He shouldn't have confessed, it'd made everything awkward. He looked up, surprised to find himself in front of his old elementary school: Teitan. There was the tree the group used to meet up at, and over there was where he had first spoken with Ai, over there was the first time Conan had explained a mystery to them. Mitsuhiko sighed, memories running about in front of his eyes cheerily. Come to think of it, Conan had always been extremely intelligent. At the time, it had been amazing, but not weird. Time had dulled the emotion which had colored Mtsuhiko's eyes rose, and his skills as a detective had increased. Now, thinking back on it with an analytical point of view, Mitsuhiko frowned. Conan had always had a brilliant deductive mind. And he'd gone out of his way to act stupid in front of adults, though he'd trusted the group. Why? Narrowing his eyes, Mitsuhiko turned and ran to his house.

He dropped his bag on his bed and pulled up his computer. Hacking quickly into the Teitan database, he pulled up Conan's records. His grades were all 'good's, as Mitsuhiko had thought, but something was off. Mitsuhiko pulled up the National Birth Registry and hacked into that, which was significantly more illegal than a school database. There! Conan Edogawa, son of Fumiyo Edogawa, maiden name Tanaka, and Hide Edogawa. He had said he was named after Arthur Conan Doyle, so that said nothing, but both of his parents were listed as being Japanese.

Mitsuhiko searched his desk real quick, finding an old picture of the gang to make sure he was remembering correctly. As he thought, Conan's eyes were blue. If both his parents were fully Japanese, as their names suggested, there was no way they could have given birth to Conan, because Conan could only be 3/4-Japanese at most. Blue eyes are a recessive trait, one of his parents had to have blue eyes in order for him to even have a chance of getting them, meaning that one of his parents was foreign or half-foreign. Both parents listed, though, were fully Japanese.

Narrowing his eyes, Mitsuhiko looked further back in the registry, but, as he thought, neither Fumiyo Tanaka nor Hide Edogawa existed. In other words, Conan's history was completely faked. With wide eyes, Mitsuhiko leaned back in his seat, letting the shock wash over him. Everything they knew about Conan was wrong. The other boy had been involved in something major before he ever even showed up at Teitan.

Mitsuhiko pulled out his cell phone and considered calling Shinichi to let him know what he'd found, but decided against it. Something was up, Shinichi could have found this information out easily if he'd wanted to. So why hadn't he? The only reason would be that he already knew, but he hadn't told the Detective Club, so he was hiding it from them. He was hiding Conan, or, perhaps, Conan's fate. No, Mitsuhiko couldn't go to Shinichi with this, he would just discourage it or try to hide other clues. Could he even go to the rest of the Club? Yes, they would keep it a secret if he asked them to, they knew better. Mitsuhiko quickly called up Ayumi and Genta and told them about what he'd found, and the two of them agreed it was strange and said they would keep an eye out for clues. His finger hovered over Ai's number for a minute, before he decided to call anyway. However, he was ignored and sent to voicemail, where he didn't leave a message. Once more, he fought to push aside the pain. Did she really hate him that much?

Mitsuhiko frowned, and focused on Conan and what he could remember. He had freeloaded at the Mouri's house, right? Mitsuhiko frowned, thinking to himself. There was something tickling his memory. Was Mouri's rise and fall in fame at the same time as Conan's arrival and departure? Looking through the few other pictures he had of Conan, he found one with Kogoro Mouri in the backgroud. Eyes wide, Mitsuhiko pulled up the computer and looked for the 'Sleeping Kogoro'. He found an article asking about where the famous detective had gone, dated about 8 years ago. Following a hunch, he also found that the Sleeping Kogoro's first appeareance was 10 years ago. It lined up perfectly with Conan's arrival and departure. Had Conan been the voice behind the great detective? Mitsuhiko glanced down at the dart watch he wore on his wrist, all the group had begun wearing them just after Conan had left. The Professor said that he had invented them to protect the kids since they were going after criminals with guns.

Mitsuhiko looked closely at the picture of Conan he had. There, on his right wrist, was the exact same watch. And around his neck was a red bow tie, what were the chances it was the same as Mitsuhiko's own voice-changing bow tie? With those two tools, Conan could become the voice and brain behind the Sleeping Kogoro. However, it still didn't explain why. There was something big going on here, something that Mitsuhiko had never noticed before, but he would get to the bottom of it. The question was simplye; where to start? Perhaps, he should start at the very beginning, at the first place the group came together to solve a mystery. After all, the abandoned 'haunted house' should be a relatively untouched crime scene, even after all this time.

With that thought, Mitsuhiko stood up and left the house once more, heading over towards a very particular house. Walking past Shinichi's, he chuckled to himself remembering how Ayumi used to insist it was 'Eto'. She still called it the Eto house, though now it was mostly to tease their teacher. A few blocks down, Mitsuhiko stood in front of another mansion. Though it had been ten years, the owners of the home were still in prison. They would likely be released fairly soon though. Walking around the fence, he found the secret entrance, the hole in the wall made by the mother. He opened it up and walked inside, where the side door was still unlocked. Mitsuhiko turned on the flashlight on his watch to shine it around in the house. He grimaced when he saw the creepy statues, those certainly hadn't gone away.

Now, where was the secret staircase again? It was near the bathroom, wasn't it? Mitsuhiko walked around a corner from a bathroom, and saw a dull metal bar on the floor. He grinned as he reached down and pulled it up.

Mitsuhiko walked down the creepy stairs, knowing what would be down there from Conan and Ayumi's descriptions, but still not really prepared for the giant cage on one side of the wall. He frowned, looking around the room. If he remembered correctly, Conan had confronted the mother here about imprisoning her son. At the time, he and Ayumi had been hiding behind the locker in the corner. Mitsuhiko walked over to peer around the corner and onto the back of the locker. There was a paper stuck to it.

He slipped on a quick pair of gloves, just like all the Detective Club Members wear, and grabbed the paper. He pulled it off and examined the front, but it was blank. Opening it up, however, revealed a very short message.

'_Dear Shounen Tantei,_

_This is my final test for you. Find me._

_-Conan Edogawa'_

It was written in neat strokes, not at all like a 1st grader's writing, but the dust and browning of the paper suggested it was around 10 years old. Conan had written this before he disappeared. Mitsuhiko's eyes narrowed. He knew it. The only way Shinichi couldn't find Conan would be if he were dead or didn't want to be found. It is pretty clear now though that Shinichi is just in on the little conspiracy. The question is, how big of a part does he play?

...

Please review!


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